*With the holiday season well and truly done with, business is back to normal here. Expect all of you usually have from That Grape Juice and a whole lot more. 09′ means bigger and even better!*

With Mariah Carey’s former label Sony BMG set to release a new compilation titled ‘The Ballads’ in the US on January 20th (already available here in the UK), e songstress has released this new video for her classic ‘Hero’ (with re-recorded vocals) – which is features on the LP.

The video serves it’s purpose, in that it’s pretty much standard ‘music video in a studio’ fare. However, listening to this really does drive home how different (some would argue, deteriorated) Mariah’s voice has become. Yes, she sounds better than current industry’s vocal standard (which isn’t saying a whole lot), but touching one of her career-defining tracks and sounding a shadow of a shadow of her old self isn’t a good look. The restraint and croakiness in her delivery are un-ignorable. Sad. (Thanks Trent! You’re a star!)

‘Never Ever’, the official first single to be lifted from Ciara’s forthcoming ‘Fantasy Ride’ LP, made it’s debut today, a day earlier than expected. The whimsical Polow Da Don produced cut, which samples Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes ‘If You Don’t Love Me By Now’, is a mid-tempo which I envision doing well at radio. However, as a first single, I’m kinda iffy on this one; it just doesn’t have that ‘ummph’ we’re used to hearing from Cici – especially as a lead single. Time will tell if it was the right choice going with this.

Having been rested on the bench for a while, this week marks the return of our From The Vault feature (with a bunch of other features set to make re-surface in the coming weeks). From The Vault sees us re-visit classic music videos, performances etc. Fat Joe’s 2002 smash collabo with Ashanti ‘What’s Luv?’ serves as this week’s clip. A bonafide hit all over the globe, who wasn’t bumping this one?

Ahh…the days when Murder Inc ruled the industry. While it was pretty much standard fare for Fat Joe to only have a hit every other album, Ashanti and her Murder Inc members – especially a certain Ja Rule continued to churn out hit after hit following this one. How the times have changed…

A representative for teen sensation Soulja Boy has confirmed the young entertainer was assaulted last week.

Unconfirmed reports began circulating on New Year’s Eve that Soulja Boy and several of his close friends were ambushed and robbed at gunpoint on Tuesday night (December 30) after six men invaded the rapper’s home.

Allegedly, Soulja Boy’s friend Jbar was nearly taken hostage during the robbery.

The following day (December 31), a video surfaced of two masked men claiming responsibility for the crime.

In the clip, the duo boasted of stalking Soulja Boy before the attack by attending his album release party and subsequently tailing the rapper to his home.

The alleged thieves further described the robbery in detail. They disputed initial reports of there being six assailants armed with pistols and Ak-47s.

Instead, the alleged robbers claimed the crime was completed between them with one weapon.

Due to the two minute video’s over the top content, the clip was initially met with skepticism by fans and media alike.

However, a representative for Soulja Boy has confirmed with AllHipHop.com that an incident did take place, but the rep refused to provide any concrete details, stating only that the crime is “a serious situation.”

Soulja Boy released his sophomore album iSouljaBoyTellem on December 16.

Earlier this week, the teen rapper again sparked controversy by releasing a Youtube video accusing legendary lyricist Nas of killing Hip-Hop and destroying economic opportunities of other emcees. {Source}

Love him (which I’m sure many of you do LOL) or loathe him, it’s never good hearing such news. Here’s wishing the boy a speedy recovery.

Randomness: With an under-performing sophomore effort in the shops, the timing of this all seems kinda suspect to me. Any publicity is good publicity? Just saying…

Peep this behind the scenes look at the video for Teairra Marie’s brand new single, the Pleasure P (formerly of Pretty Ricky) assisted ‘Hunt 4 U’. I must say the song, which is the first single to be lifted from the former ‘Princess of The Roc’s as yet untitled Interscope debut, continues to grow on me by the day – the Benny Boom directed video doesn’t look bad either. Be on the look-out for the video’s premiere in the week(s) ahead.

R&B star Kelly Rowland has been busy carving out a successful solo career for herself outside of the USA since the release of her sophomore effort ‘Ms. Kelly’. The 27 year old singer took to the stage at MTV Africa’s first MTV Africa Awards, performing her smash ‘Like This’ with Nigerian star D’Banj.

Granted it’s good to see Kelly building her ‘International’ base, performances like that aren’t going to do her any favours. Knowing what Kelly is capable of delivering on her own accord (see below), it grates a little to see her serve up such a so-so/sub-par showing with this. I mean if she wasn’t going to dance (which she didn’t – more just walked around the stage), then the vocals should have been on-point – which they weren’t. More of performances like these please Kelly (see below):

X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke capped off an amazing 2008 for herself by performing at Elton John’s New Years Eve concert at London’s 02 Arena last night. The 20 year old performed her record breaking debut ‘Hallelujah’ – which, despite being released mid-December, still ended up being the top selling UK single of 2008.

About this performance, again, not perfect, but still a great great live vocal performance. It’s really not often that a UK talent of such a caliber gets the platform to showcase their pipes, speak less selling records by the bucket load while doing so. More power to her!

Solange and the Pussycat Dolls were among the artists who took to the stage at Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve telecast, which aired last night. Peep the youngest of the Knowles clan perform ‘Sandcastle Disco’ and Nicole and them performing ‘Bottle Pop’ below:

Solange – Sandcastle Disco

Pussycat Dolls – Bottle Pop

While Solange continues to show why she is one of the more consistent talents to properly emerge from 2008 with her great performance(s), the Pussycat Dolls left a lot to be desired. I’m so sure that if I were to turn down the volume during their performances I wouldn’t be able to tell whether they were performing different songs, as their stage-show is all the same formulaic crap IMO.